This fall, we celebrate the spirit of adventure that has always defined the ICA with a season of nonstop art and performance. The centerpiece of our 75th Anniversary season is Dance/Draw, a landmark exhibition exploring the dynamic exchange taking place between visual art and dance today.
Although dance and the visual arts have enjoyed a long relationship, it has traditionally been comprised of artists creating sets for performances. Recently, however, many visual artists have incorporated dance into their work, and some dancers have experimented with drawing.
Dance/Draw assembles work by nearly 40 artists and explores the multi-layered relationship between contemporary dance and the drawing of the past 40 years.
During the period after World War II, modern dance deviated from the strict codes of traditional ballet en pointe, adopting everyday gestures and natural, childlike play into its standard repertoire. So too contemporary drawing abandoned the confines of technical perfection and frequently left the picture frame altogether. In both dance and drawing the line, as an independent means of expression, was liberated from the historical ideal of perfect form, and instead appears as a mobile, open-ended element capable of exploring a wide range of ideas dealing with history and memory, as well as the expressive potential of the body.